Law
Wave of Grok AI fake images of women and girls appalling, says UK minister
Ofcom has said it is aware of serious concerns raised about Grok creating undressed images of people. Ofcom has said it is aware of serious concerns raised about Grok creating undressed images of people. Liz Kendall calls on X to'deal with this urgently' while expert criticises'worryingly slow' government response Tue 6 Jan 2026 11.56 ESTLast modified on Tue 6 Jan 2026 12.17 EST The UK technology secretary has called a wave of images of women and children with their clothes digitally removed generated by Elon Musk's Grok AI "appalling and unacceptable in decent society". After thousands of intimate deepfakes circulated online, Liz Kendall said X, Musk's social media platform, needed to "deal with this urgently" and she backed the UK regulator Ofcom to "take any enforcement action it deems necessary". "We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls," she said.
Now Musk's Grok chatbot is creating sexualised images of children. If the law won't stop it, perhaps his investors will Sophia Smith Galer
Now Musk's Grok chatbot is creating sexualised images of children. The owner of X has grown used to acting with impunity - but this may be a red line for those with'conservative values' who fund his adventures in free speech I t's a sickening law of the internet that the first thing people will try to do with a new tool is strip women. Grok, X's AI chatbot, has been used repeatedly by users in recent days to undress images of women and minors. The news outlet Reuters identified 102 requests in a 10-minute period last Friday from users to get Grok to edit people into bikinis, the majority of these targeting young women. Grok complied with at least 21 of them.
Elon Musk's X should deal with 'appalling' Grok AI deepfakes, government demands
Government demands Musk's X deals with'appalling' Grok AI deepfakes Technology Secretary Liz Kendall has called on Elon Musk's X to urgently deal with its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok being used to create non-consensual sexualised deepfake images of women and girls. The BBC has seen several examples on X of people asking the bot to digitally undress people to make them appear in bikinis without their consent, as well as putting them in sexual situations. Kendall said the situation was absolutely appalling, adding we cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these degrading images. It is absolutely right that Ofcom is looking into this as a matter of urgency and it has my full backing to take any enforcement action it deems necessary. On Monday, regulator Ofcom said it had made urgent contact with Elon Musk's company xAI and was investigating concerns Grok has been producing undressed images of people.
Beyond Demand Estimation: Consumer Surplus Evaluation via Cumulative Propensity Weights
Bian, Zeyu, Biggs, Max, Gao, Ruijiang, Qi, Zhengling
This paper develops a practical framework for using observational data to audit the consumer surplus effects of AI-driven decisions, specifically in targeted pricing and algorithmic lending. Traditional approaches first estimate demand functions and then integrate to compute consumer surplus, but these methods can be challenging to implement in practice due to model misspecification in parametric demand forms and the large data requirements and slow convergence of flexible nonparametric or machine learning approaches. Instead, we exploit the randomness inherent in modern algorithmic pricing, arising from the need to balance exploration and exploitation, and introduce an estimator that avoids explicit estimation and numerical integration of the demand function. Each observed purchase outcome at a randomized price is an unbiased estimate of demand and by carefully reweighting purchase outcomes using novel cumulative propensity weights (CPW), we are able to reconstruct the integral. Building on this idea, we introduce a doubly robust variant named the augmented cumulative propensity weighting (ACPW) estimator that only requires one of either the demand model or the historical pricing policy distribution to be correctly specified. Furthermore, this approach facilitates the use of flexible machine learning methods for estimating consumer surplus, since it achieves fast convergence rates by incorporating an estimate of demand, even when the machine learning estimate has slower convergence rates. Neither of these estimators is a standard application of off-policy evaluation techniques as the target estimand, consumer surplus, is unobserved. To address fairness, we extend this framework to an inequality-aware surplus measure, allowing regulators and firms to quantify the profit-equity trade-off. Finally, we validate our methods through comprehensive numerical studies.
EU flags 'appalling' child-like deepfakes generated by X's Grok AI
EU flags'appalling' child-like deepfakes generated by X's Grok AI The European Commission has condemned the reported spread of explicit, child-like content on social media platform X, calling the material "appalling" and "disgusting". European Union digital affairs spokesman Thomas Regnier made the comments to reporters on Monday following weeks of complaints over a new feature on X's integrated AI chatbot Grok used to generate pornographic content, including depicting children. Regnier said the European Commission is "very seriously looking" into the matter, and such content has "no place in Europe". Meanwhile, the public prosecutor's office in Paris, France expanded an investigation into X to include accusations that Grok - created by Elon Musk's xAI company - has been used to generate and spread child pornography. In late December, a novel "edit image" feature on Grok allowed users to modify any image on the platform.
Ofcom asks X about reports its Grok AI makes sexualised images of children
Ofcom has made urgent contact with Elon Musk's company xAI following reports its AI tool Grok can be used to make sexualised images of children and undress women. A spokesperson for the regulator said it was also investigating concerns Grok has been producing undressed images of people. The BBC has seen several examples on the social media platform X of people asking the chatbot to alter real images to make women appear in bikinis without their consent, as well as putting them in sexual situations. X has not responded to a request for comment. On Sunday, it issued a warning to users not to use Grok to generate illegal content including child sexual abuse material.
Never Out of Date: How Hannah Arendt Helps Us Understand Our World
Fifty years after her death in New York, Hannah Arendt has become the most popular philosopher of our time. For good reason: Her views are just as timely as ever. It must be so nice to play Hannah Arendt. No fewer than five actresses are on stage this evening at the Deutsches Theater Berlin to portray the philosopher. The piece is an adaptation of the graphic novel by American illustrator Ken Krimstein about the philosopher's life, called The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt," combined with scenes from the famous interview that journalist Günter Gaus conducted with Arendt in 1964 for German public broadcaster ZDF. The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 49/2025 (November 28th, 2025) of DER SPIEGEL. They play Arendt and a few of her contemporaries, the philosopher Martin Heidegger, the writer Walter Benjamin, her husband Heinrich Blücher. There is a great deal of speech in the play, especially from Arendt herself. The places of her life are ticked off, her ...
What's next for AI in 2026
Our AI writers make their big bets for the coming year--here are five hot trends to watch. In an industry in constant flux, sticking your neck out to predict what's coming next may seem reckless. But for the last few years we've done just that--and we're doing it again. How did we do last time? Here are our big bets for the next 12 months. The last year shaped up as a big one for Chinese open-source models.
US action in Venezuela not legal, senior Labour MP says
The US military action in Venezuela breaches international law and the UK should make clear it is unacceptable, the chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has said. Dame Emily Thornberry is the most senior Labour MP so far to criticise Donald Trump's strikes on the country over the weekend, which saw President Nicolas Maduro and his wife captured. The UK government has so far refused to say whether the move was illegal, insisting it is for the Americans to lay out the legal basis for the action. But the US president's actions have been criticised by some Labour MPs, as well as the leaders of the Lib Dems, Greens and the SNP. Dame Emily told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour the strikes were not a legal action and she cannot think of anything that could be a proper justification.