AI is evolving at such an unprecedented rate that governments are not yet sure on how best to regulate or control it.
AI is evolving at such an unprecedented rate that governments are not yet sure on how best to regulate or control it. The scandal involving Grok AI, the large-language based chat bot available on the social media platform ‘X’, is a stark reminder that we are not yet prepared to handle the challenges posed by AI.
Grok AI or ‘Grok’ is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot made available on Elon Musk’s social media platform ‘X’ in November 2023. Between December 2025 and January 2026, Grok AI became the centre of controversy regarding its applications on X. On the platform the chatbot is used to generate either written or, as of July 2025, visual responses to prompts. These generated images have become a source of immense tension, as Grok Imagine (the video and image generation tool) was built with a ‘spicy feature’, allowing users to generate content with nudity and sexual imagery. A feature that exists despite XAI’s acceptable use policy prohibiting "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner". As a result, hundreds of users have asked Grok to create child pornography and sexualised deepfakes of real people, with multiple women digitally undressed and depicted in sexual situations without their consent.
Despite it being illegal to share deepfakes of adults in the UK, there is no legislation in force to make it a criminal offence to create or generate them. Partnered with the lack of moderation or restrictions implemented by X, Grok has become a weapon used to illegally infringe on people’s rights and create child pornography without consequences. Ultimately, it is women who are most vulnerable to Grok’s digital violations - with one woman revealing that the tool was used to generate over 100 sexualised images of her. There is no way for a user to prevent these abuses from occurring, and the situation has been highlighted as a part of the wider problem of systematic violence against women and girls.
In January 2026, campaigners began to pressure the UK government to act and enforce legislation to restrict Grok’s capabilities. In response to growing concern, on the 12th of January the watchdog Ofcom launched an investigation into the platform, with the UK government supporting a move to ban X in the UK if deemed necessary. Although X responded to the criticism, emphasising that those that ask Grok to generate illegal content will face the same consequences as those that share such content, the countermeasures they imposed have been deemed both insulting and insufficient. In January, X restricted Grok Imagine to users who pay a monthly fee, which not only does nothing to solve the problem but also allows X to profit from sexual violence against women and children. In a worsening of the situation, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that after technical restrictions were implemented by X, as of January 15th, 29% of an identified 20,000 sexualised images of children were still available on the platform.
Instead of taking responsibility and apologising, Elon Musk (the owner of X and founder of Grok AI) declared in a post on X that the government’s response was an example of censorship, “they just want to supress free speech”. The implications being that personal freedoms should be valued over moral and consensual boundaries. This reaction is aligned with the attitudes held by the Government of the United States, with President Trump signing an executive order to restrict AI regulations on companies that develop models with ideological biases – a prioritisation of development over safety.
To confuse the situation further, certain governments and influential figures are purposefully sabotaging efforts to impose well-meaning restrictions. On the 26th of January 2026, the European Union launched an investigation into Grok AI, assessing whether X took the appropriate steps to mitigate risks. However, until both this and Ofcom’s investigations are concluded, people are still currently vulnerable to the risk of non-consensual image generation. Currently, neither X, Grok AI, or the users who generated the offending content have faced criminal charges or convictions, meaning the victims are left without justice, many of them still suffering or targeted.
The Grok AI scandal is indicative of a wider issue lying at the heart of Artificial Intelligence. Our government is not currently able to handle the new challenges posed to public safety by AI; the Online Safety Act regulations are unclear as to whether the creations of such images are illegal. If the government is going to welcome the AI industry into the UK, whilst simultaneously campaigning to end violence against women and girls, serious and rapid change is non-negotiable. The government needs to match the speed of the swiftly evolving industry and enact restrictions faster – or else more people will become victims to unregulated AI.