Parker Molloy writes:

Over the past week, users on X discovered something horrifying: strangers were replying to women’s photos and asking Grok, the platform’s built-in AI chatbot, to “remove her clothes” or “put her in a bikini.” And Grok was doing it. Publicly. In the replies. For everyone to see.

This wasn’t happening in some private chat window. Unlike other AI image generators that operate in closed environments, Grok posts its outputs directly to X, turning the platform into a public showcase of non-consensual sexualization. Women scrolling through their mentions were finding AI-generated images of themselves in lingerie, created by complete strangers, visible to anyone who clicked on the thread.

And it got worse. Much worse.

Last week, a user asked Grok to put two young girls in “sexy underwear.” Grok complied, generating and posting an image of children (estimated by the bot itself to be between 12 and 16 years old) in sexualized clothing.

Samantha Smith, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, tested whether Grok would alter a childhood photo of her. It did. “I thought ‘surely this can’t be real,’” she wrote on X. “So I tested it with a photo from my First Holy Communion. It’s real. And it’s fucking sick.”

Smith pointed out that most child sexual abuse occurs within families. “66% of child sexual abuse takes place within the family,” she wrote. “A paedophilic father or uncle would absolutely use this kind of tool to indulge their fantasies.” The danger isn’t hypothetical. [Continue reading…]