What happened

X (formerly Twitter) was flooded with "non-consensual intimate imagery" (NCII) after users  discovered they could prompt Grok to "digitally undress" individuals by asking it to remove school uniforms or replace clothing with "transparent mini-bikinis" and other sexualised attire.

Watchdogs such as the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and researchers found the tool was being used to create illegal sexualised imagery of children as young as 10 to 13 years old, and reports indicated that users were generating up to 6,700 sexualised images per hour, with many being shared publicly on X's "Grok Imagine" feed. 

Victims complained that the images caused severe distress and trauma, loss of privacy, and damaged their reputations.

Why it happened

The incident is widely attributed to Elon Musk's "fail fast" development culture that prioritised feature parity over safety.

• Safeguard failures: xAI (the developer) admitted to "lapses in safeguards," as Grok's filters failed to recognise that prompts like "remove school outfit" or "teenager in string bikini" constituted sexual exploitation.

• System opacity: Independent audits, including by Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered AI, have labeled Grok as one of the least transparent major AI systems. Unlike competitors that block high-risk keywords or embed permanent watermarks, Grok’s "spicy" mode was structurally designed to be less restrictive.

• Inadequate accountability: Critics argue that X’s leadership initially minimised the issue, framing it as a "free speech" matter or shifting blame to users, rather than acknowledging that the tool itself was "undressing by design."