Grok AI generated about 3m sexualised photos in lower than two weeks, together with 23,000 that seem to depict kids, in accordance to researchers who mentioned it “grew to become an industrial-scale machine for the manufacturing of sexual abuse materials”.
The estimate has been made by the Heart for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) after Elon Musk’s AI picture era software sparked worldwide outrage when it allowed customers to add images of strangers and celebrities, digitally strip them to their underwear or into bikinis, put them in provocative poses and put up the photos on X.
The development went viral over the new yr, peaking on 2 January with 199,612 particular person requests, in accordance to evaluation performed by Peryton Intelligence, a digital intelligence firm specialising in on-line hate.
A fuller evaluation of the output from the characteristic, from its launch on 29 December 2025 till 8 January 2026, has now been made by the CCDH. It suggests the influence of the know-how might have been broader than beforehand thought. Public figures recognized in sexualised photos it analysed embody Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Ice Spice, Nicki Minaj, Christina Hendricks, Millie Bobby Brown, the Swedish deputy prime minister Ebba Busch, and the former US vice-president Kamala Harris.
The characteristic was restricted to paid users on 9 January and additional restrictions adopted after the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, known as the state of affairs “disgusting” and “shameful”. Different nations, together with Indonesia and Malaysia, introduced blocks on the AI software.
CCDH estimated that over the 11-day interval, Grok was serving to create sexualised photos of kids each 41 seconds. These included a selfie uploaded by a schoolgirl undressed by Grok, turning a “before college selfie” into a picture of her in a bikini.
“What we discovered was clear and disturbing: in that interval Grok grew to become an industrial-scale machine for the manufacturing of sexual abuse materials,” mentioned Imran Ahmed, CCDH’s chief govt. “Stripping a lady with out their permission is sexual abuse. All through that interval Elon was hyping the product even when it was clear to the world it was getting used on this method. What Elon was ginning up was controversy, eyeballs, engagement and customers. It was deeply disturbing.”
He added: “This has grow to be a normal playbook for Silicon Valley, and specifically for social media and AI platforms. The incentives are all misaligned. They revenue from this outrage. It’s not about Musk personally. This is a couple of system [with] perverse incentives and no minimal safeguards prescribed in regulation. And till regulators and lawmakers do their jobs and create a minimal expectation of security, it will proceed to occur.”
X introduced it had stopped its Grok feature from enhancing footage of actual folks to present them in revealing garments, together with for premium subscribers, on 14 January.
X referred to its assertion from final week, which said: “We stay dedicated to making X a protected platform for everybody and proceed to have zero tolerance for any types of little one sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and undesirable sexual content material.
“We take motion to take away high-priority violative content material, together with little one sexual abuse materials and non-consensual nudity, taking applicable motion towards accounts that violate our X guidelines. We additionally report accounts searching for little one sexual exploitation supplies to regulation enforcement authorities as mandatory.”
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