{"id":229427,"date":"2026-01-06T00:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T00:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229427\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T00:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T00:25:13","slug":"ofcom-makes-urgent-contact-with-x-over-concerns-grok-ai-can-generate-sexualised-images-of-children-science-climate-tech-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/229427\/","title":{"rendered":"Ofcom makes &#8216;urgent contact&#8217; with X over concerns Grok AI can generate &#8216;sexualised images of children&#8217; | Science, Climate &#038; Tech News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ofcom has made &#8220;urgent contact&#8221; with Elon Musk&#8217;s social media platform X over &#8220;serious concerns&#8221; its in-built artificial intelligence can be used to generate &#8220;undressed images of people and sexualised images of children&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Since the start of the new year, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/twitter-6057\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">X<\/a> users &#8211; mainly women &#8211; have reported that accounts have used the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/artificial-intelligence-7032\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">artificial intelligence<\/a> tool Grok to generate images of them without clothing.<\/p>\n<p>There are also several cases where Grok has created sexualised images of children, according to analysis by news agency Reuters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/ofcom-6155\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ofcom<\/a> said in a statement on Monday that it had made &#8220;urgent contact&#8221; with X and xAI &#8211; the artificial intelligence company behind Grok and owned by Mr Musk &#8211; and will assess whether &#8220;there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are aware of serious concerns raised about a feature on Grok on X that produces undressed images of people and sexualised images of children,&#8221; the online regulator for safety said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have made urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Based on their response, we will undertake a swift assessment to determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>        More on Artificial Intelligence<\/p>\n<p>It comes after X owner <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/elon-musk-6730\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Mr Musk<\/a> said in a post on Saturday that &#8220;anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/skynews-elon-musk-money-work_7087486.jpg\"   alt=\"Elon Musk. Pic: AP\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Elon Musk. Pic: AP<\/p>\n<p>A statement shared on the social media platform&#8217;s official Safety account said: &#8220;We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A post on the Grok X account previously said there had been &#8220;isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing. &#8220;xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely,&#8221; it added.<\/p>\n<p>Under the <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/online-safety-bill-9754\/1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Online Safety Act<\/a>, it is illegal to share, or threaten to share, intimate photos or videos of someone &#8211; including deepfake images &#8211; without their permission.<\/p>\n<p>The act, which became law last July, also requires social media firms to prevent and remove child sexual abuse material when they become aware of it.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/skynews-tiktok-mickey-carroll_7099927.jpg\"  class=\"ui-video-player-poster-image\" alt=\"\" data-testid=\"video-player-poster-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>    Share<\/p>\n<p>\n                From December: TikTok whistleblowers speak to Sky\n            <\/p>\n<p>     <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/download-app\" target=\"blank\" data-tracking-label=\"ui-app-promo-download-link\" class=\"ui-app-promo sdc-article-widget\" data-type=\"\" data-component-name=\"ui-app-promo\" data-testid=\"app-promo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>AI images &#8216;can do quite a lot of damage&#8217;, says expert<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to Sky News about the use of Grok to generate images of women undressed, a cybersecurity expert has highlighted a lack of &#8220;international, treaty-level agreement on how we&#8217;re going to handle AI&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Charlotte Wilson, head of enterprise at global firm Check Point, said: &#8220;You look how accessible some of these toolkits are, they&#8217;re like what we used to see with malware and phishing toolkits &#8211; where from a really low point of entry, you can do quite a lot of damage to an individual, a brand reputation, a group of people. And [AI image generation] disproportionately impacts women.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t seem to have a global, international, treaty-level agreement on how we&#8217;re going to handle AI,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got the US looking to handle it one way, you&#8217;ve got the EU trying to regulate separately.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Other than being able to go and seek the criminal through whatever market and find out who did it and taking that person down, I don&#8217;t see us collaborating [on policing deepfakes] globally.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Read more from Sky News:<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/the-40-jobs-most-at-risk-of-ai-and-40-it-cant-touch-13447013\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The 40 jobs &#8216;most at risk&#8217; from AI &#8211; and 40 it can&#8217;t touch<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/tiktok-faces-legal-action-over-moderator-cuts-13485485\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TikTok faces legal action over moderator cuts<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It comes after French ministers reported sexually explicit content generated by Grok on X to prosecutors on Friday, saying in a statement that the &#8220;sexual and sexist&#8221; content was &#8220;manifestly illegal&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The ministers said they had also reported the content to French media regulator Arcom for checks on whether it complied with the European Union&#8217;s Digital Services Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ofcom has made &#8220;urgent contact&#8221; with Elon Musk&#8217;s social media platform X over &#8220;serious concerns&#8221; its in-built artificial&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-229427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}