Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, keeps generating non-consensual sexual deepfakes
Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot built by Elon Musk’s xAI, is back in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Months after the company made public promises to put an end to the generation of non-consensual sexual deepfakes on its platform, a recent NBC News investigation shows those promises fell far short of becoming reality.
Reporters found dozens of AI-generated images and videos featuring sexualized content of real people, posted openly on X over the past month. The images show women whose appearances were edited by the chatbot to place them in more revealing clothing — towels, sports tops, skin-tight Spider-Woman suits, or bunny costumes. Many of the women depicted are well-known pop stars or actresses.
And the most concerning part is that users have already figured out new ways to get around the filters implemented in January, keeping the cycle of abuse fully operational. 😬
If you thought this problem had been solved, reality paints a very different picture — and investigations by at least eight regulatory and law enforcement agencies around the world confirm it.
What the NBC News investigation uncovered about Grok
The NBC News report was quite detailed and showed the problem goes well beyond a handful of isolated cases. Reporters identified dozens of posts on X containing synthetic images and videos with sexualized content of public figures and everyday people, all created with the help of Grok’s own artificial intelligence tools. The material was openly available with no access restrictions whatsoever, meaning anyone with an account on the platform could view it without difficulty.
The Grok software, built by Musk’s xAI, produced these images at the request of users who tried to break through the clothing-removal restrictions the service had put in place in January. Either Grok itself through its X account, or the users who made the requests, posted the images on the platform.
What stands out most in this whole story is the speed at which users found loopholes in the new filters. In January of this year, xAI announced it had implemented technical barriers to prevent Grok from generating non-consensual sexual deepfakes. The promise was widely publicized and even got positive coverage from tech outlets. But the investigation shows that in practice, those barriers were bypassed impressively fast.
It is worth noting that the number of sexualized deepfakes created by Grok and posted on X appears to have dropped significantly since the January flood. In the posts reviewed by NBC News, the software refuses or ignores many of the sexualized requests it receives publicly on X. None of the women in the Grok-generated images were fully nude, and none appeared to be minors.
However, experts told NBC News that it is hard to search everything Grok produces, especially when people access the software privately through the Grok app, the Grok website, or the private Grok tab on X. It is also difficult to search X for all public examples of sexualized deepfakes.
When these images are created and spread, the people depicted don’t necessarily know about it, said Stefan Turkheimer, vice president of public policy at RAINN, an organization dedicated to combating sexual violence.
How the filters are being bypassed: the new tactics
Understanding how these filters are being circumvented is key to grasping the scale of the challenge artificial intelligence companies face. Generally speaking, moderation systems work based on keywords, behavioral patterns, and analysis of images already flagged as problematic. The problem is that this reactive model has a massive structural limitation: it depends on identifying something that has been seen before.
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The new examples found by NBC News show that Grok users have updated their tactics to try to stay ahead of xAI engineers and X content moderators. While Grok now seems to refuse or ignore requests to put people in a bikini, it has been complying with other types of requests. And the examples were not hard to find using X’s search function.
The investigation identified three main abuse trends:
- Merging images with poses: A user asks Grok to create an image combining two simultaneously uploaded pictures — first, a photo of a woman, usually a celebrity, and second, a drawing of a stick figure with legs spread, squatting, or doing a split. The request includes a command telling Grok to make the woman replicate the pose from the second image. The resulting deepfake emphasizes the woman’s intimate area.
- Swapping outfits between photos: Users ask Grok to swap the clothing of women in two separate photos, where at least one of the photos involves tight or revealing clothing.
- Turning photos into sexualized videos: Users upload seemingly authentic photos of women and ask Grok to turn them into video clips, sometimes with sexualized results. In one example from March 12, Grok generated a video in which the image of an actress gropes her own breasts, based on an image where she was not doing that. In another example from April 6, Grok created a video of the same actress with her legs spread, based on a photo where her legs were crossed.
At least one of the celebrities depicted in the deepfakes is someone who has publicly spoken out against this type of imagery in the past.
This kind of technique is known in the field as jailbreaking, and it is one of the biggest headaches for any company developing language models and image generation with AI, because it requires constant updates to security systems to keep up with the creativity of bad actors.
xAI’s response and Elon Musk’s stance
xAI, the Musk startup that built Grok and also owns X, said Monday that it would like to review NBC News’ findings. A representative did not respond to additional questions. By Tuesday, most of the images were no longer on X and had been replaced by messages saying the post isn’t available or violated the Rules of X.
After NBC News published its findings on Tuesday, X said in a statement on its platform: We strictly prohibit users from generating non-consensual explicit deepfakes and using our tools to undress real people. xAI has extensive safeguards to prevent such misuse, such as continuous monitoring of public usage, real-time analysis of evasion attempts, frequent model updates, prompt filters, and additional safeguards.
You cannot talk about Grok without talking about the context in which it was created. xAI is the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk after he left OpenAI’s board, and Grok was positioned from the start as an alternative to ChatGPT — one that would be less restrictive and more willing to tackle topics other models avoid. In practice, that philosophy created an environment where the boundaries of what is allowed have always been murkier than those of its competitors.
Musk himself actively promoted Grok’s ability to create sexualized images. He frequently posted AI-generated images of women in sexual situations or wearing revealing clothing. In an October post, responding to someone who shared an AI video of a sexualized robot, Musk complained: Hmm, our competitors make better deepfakes. We’ll have to up our game.
Last year, xAI launched a new AI video generation tool called Imagine, which included something the company called Spicy mode, allowing the creation of AI-generated content rated as not suitable for minors. According to The Verge, the tool even created topless deepfakes of singer Taylor Swift without the user having asked for it.
The scale of the problem: numbers and independent analysis
Genevieve Oh, an independent analyst whose deepfake research is widely cited, said in an email that she believes Grok was and still is arguably the largest generator of non-consensual synthetic nudity in the world. While she said her research is still ongoing, she stated that Grok likely surpasses the output of all other nudification tools combined. Similar apps have been circulating for years, causing disruptions in schools and leaving victims searching for some kind of legal recourse.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which estimated in January that Grok produced 3 million sexualized images during an 11-day period, said last week that it is also still finding non-consensual deepfakes made by Musk’s AI.
Perverts can still use Grok to put women and girls in sexualized positions and clothing, despite the platform’s claims to the contrary, said Imran Ahmed, CEO and founder of the center, in a statement.
When Grok instituted the changes that enabled the creation of sexualized deepfakes, it was unique among the most popular AI platforms in relaxing its protections to that degree.
Government investigations in multiple countries
With investigations open in multiple jurisdictions and growing pressure from lawmakers and digital rights organizations, Grok and X are likely to face more concrete consequences in the coming months.
Eight separate law enforcement and regulatory agencies confirmed to NBC News this month that they are continuing their investigations into Grok’s nudification and sexualization capabilities. Those authorities include:
- The California Attorney General’s office
- Australia’s eSafety office
- The Canadian Privacy Commissioner
- The European Commission
- Ireland’s Data Protection Commission
- The Paris public prosecutor
- Two British agencies: the Office of Communications (Ofcom) and the Information Commissioner’s Office
The California investigation is still very much underway. Additionally, to protect an ongoing investigation, we have no further updates to share at this time, the office of Attorney General Rob Bonta said in an email.
In the Netherlands, where an advocacy organization sued xAI over sexualized deepfakes, the company argued at a court hearing that it could not prevent all misuse of its tools and should not be penalized for the actions of bad actors. Even so, the Dutch court issued an order last month for Grok to stop generating nude images of adults or children.
In February, French authorities raided X’s offices in the country in connection with the deepfakes and other issues. They also said they planned to summon X executives and employees, including Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino, for interviews in Paris during the week of April 20. X condemned the raid as an abusive act of police theater.
Italy, which issued a warning in January that some images created by Grok could be criminal, decided not to launch its own investigation and opted to monitor the investigations from Ireland and the European Commission instead. Meanwhile, Malaysia’s communications commission, which blocked and then restored access to Grok in January, said it is not investigating the matter at this time.
Lawsuits and the impact on Musk’s business empire
xAI separately faces several lawsuits over Grok’s generation of sexualized images. They include two proposed class-action lawsuits in federal court in California, filed by women and girls whose images were edited by Grok, and a lawsuit from the city of Baltimore alleging violations of its consumer protection code.
The investigations and lawsuits come at a sensitive time for Musk’s business empire. In February, xAI was acquired by another Musk company, SpaceX, the rocket services and satellite internet business. In June, SpaceX is planning an initial public offering (IPO) to raise billions of dollars in additional capital.
The decision to fold xAI into SpaceX means the rocket company will almost certainly be on the hook for any potential future fines related to Grok’s behavior, legal experts said. Although it is unclear whether such fines would be considered material to SpaceX’s expected $2 trillion valuation.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children speaks out
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which operates the CyberTipline — a centralized reporting system for online child exploitation in the United States — said members of the public are submitting reports describing incidents in which children or abuse survivors may have been exploited using Grok.
NCMEC is concerned about any AI technology that has the potential to generate child sexual abuse material or otherwise facilitate the exploitation of children, the organization said in a statement.
Musk has denied that Grok has produced child sexual abuse material. He wrote in a January 14 post that he was not aware of any nude images of minors generated by Grok. Literally zero.
The backstory: how it all started
In late December, users began reporting a wave of sexualized deepfakes targeting women and girls whose photos Grok digitally edited to make them appear nude or nearly nude. On December 31, Grok said on X that there had been isolated cases where users requested and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing. In a separate post, the software said it was deeply sorry for what it had done.
xAI initially did not change the product and instead placed the responsibility on users to comply with child abuse laws. Anyone who uses Grok to create illegal content will face the same consequences as someone who uploads illegal content, Musk posted on January 3.
But the global backlash quickly overwhelmed the company. The British Internet Watch Foundation reported criminal images that online users said had been created with Grok. Different researchers independently found that Grok was producing thousands of sexualized images per hour. X restricted AI image generation to paying customers only on January 9 and announced the broader crackdown on January 14.
European Union regulators sometimes take years to reach decisions. They spent two years investigating X before announcing in December that they were fining the company the equivalent of $140 million for transparency obligation violations. Musk vowed to challenge the fine.
What to expect going forward
The UK’s Internet Watch Foundation said its analysts have been unable to search for criminal material on Grok beyond its paywalls, so they do not know what Grok users are currently generating. The foundation said it is not enough for Musk to limit AI tools to paying customers.
Our position is that tech companies must ensure that the products they build and make available to the global public are safe by design, the foundation said in a statement. If that means governments and regulators need to force them to design safer tools, then that is what needs to happen. Sitting and waiting for unsafe products to be abused before taking action is unacceptable.
From a technical standpoint, truly solving this problem requires a very different approach than simply adding banned words to a filter list. Companies developing generative AI need to invest in moderation systems that work in real time, that can understand context and intent, and that continuously update based on newly identified abuse patterns. That is expensive, requires dedicated teams, and most importantly, demands a cultural shift within these companies — placing user safety as a genuine priority rather than just a public relations talking point.
The story of Grok and sexual deepfakes is, at its core, a reflection of a much larger problem the artificial intelligence industry still does not know how to solve: how to balance the creative freedom that makes these tools powerful with the responsibility of ensuring they are not used to cause real harm to real people. This is the debate that will define the future of AI regulation in the years ahead, and cases like this show that the clock is ticking. ⏳
