ON THE AI TOOL GROK
“AI-generated images digitally alter real women and girls into sexualised scenarios. Image-based abuse is running amok on TikTok.
Half a million UK teens have encountered AI-generated nude deepfakes and about 50% of kids aged 8-15 have seen deepfake content online.
The ‘Put her in a bikini trend’ is online violence. Treating it lightly obscures its real-world harm.
[In August the AI tool] Grok was found producing sexually explicit content involving stars like Taylor Swift, whose likeness Grok – or rather human users using Grok – manipulated. North West (the daughter, age 12, of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West) also has been targeted.
The UK minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), Jess Phillips, vowed to ‘deploy the full power of the state to make this country safe for women and girls, both online and off”.
But digitally undressing women and generating images that sexualise children is not a new misuse of AI. It’s image-based sexual abuse enabled by deliberate design choices and allowed to go on unchecked thanks to an unwillingness to treat harm to women and girls as urgent
or enforceable.
Terms like ‘nudifying’ or ‘fake images’ minimise what victims experience: it’s sexual assault, says legal expert Professor Clare McGlynn. Impacts include hypervigilance, social withdrawal, distrust and fear that any notification could mean more abuse.
‘These images are created and shared to humiliate, silence and push women off public platforms,’ McGlynn says.
‘We all suffer from this mass sexual harassment of women. Because all women now know the threat of being online.’
Dr Arghavan Salles, of Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, is vocal about what Grok’s outputs reveal about power, misogyny and control: ‘The men taking pleasure in violating women and children digitally are doing so for the sake of violation, not because they can’t find sexual images or videos – even abusive ones – online. The porn industry exists. But these men intentionally seek out non-sexual images and sexualising them without the consent of those in the photos because it is the violation of another person’s autonomy, the humiliation, the degrading that they enjoy.’
The ease with which Grok allows images to be manipulated – publicly, instantly – changes the risk profile. Unlike with earlier deepfake tools, you don’t need any technical expertise or external platforms to quickly and easily generate a deepfake. After a short prompt, the image is – moments later – live on one of the world’s largest platforms.
For Jurgita Lapienytė of Cybernews, the most troubling aspect of the Grok controversy is how long it was allowed to fester. In August, Grok was generating sexually explicit content involving public figures. Watchdog groups warned xAI exactly would happen if this wasn’t fixed: ‘We’re now seeing children as young as 10 being sexualised.’
McGlynn says: ‘This is about a failure to take the sexual harassment of women seriously’”
WORDS Grok’s AI Sexual Abuse Isn’t a “Trend”, It’s a Threat to Women (Marie Claire, 9/1/26)
IMPACT OF PORN ON KIDS
“For young people, porn can be a first sex-ed ‘teacher’ sometimes before puberty or before kids have a genuine interest in sex. But what is shaping their understanding is an endless flow of explicit, accessible, algorithmically tailored material.
In adolescence, when the brain is wiring rapidly, these images and narratives can influence how young people perceive their body, desires and identity. These expectations can persist into adulthood.
Porn can be a harsh benchmark – teens often compare their body, attractiveness and imagined sexual performance to adult actors whose role is to look flawless and always enthusiastic.
Boys may feel pressure to perform, dominate or initiate in ways that seem unnatural. Girls may feel expected to be constantly willing, pleasing or tolerant of behaviour that doesn’t align with healthy intimacy.
The Institute For Addressing Strangulation found that 35% of UK 16- to 34-year-olds were choked at least once during consensual sex.
Often disconnected from intimacy, consent, respect and emotional connection, porn can provoke embarrassment during romantic encounters, avoidance of intimacy or a paralysing fear of not ‘measuring up’.
Repeated exposure can establish a ‘sexual script’ for how sex should happen and expected roles.
When these scripts develop early, before romantic experience, they can become the default pattern.
Porn reduces sex to mechanics and acts without what makes it meaningful: consent, affection, communication, trust. The intimacy is performative.
Because of porn, many young people are unsure about what ‘normal’ intimacy looks like. They may expect encounters to be aggressive, choreographed, emotionless or violent.
This mismatch can cause disappointment, pressure and disconnection.
What can parents do?
• Start talking earlier than you think you should. Age-appropriate conversations about bodies, respect and boundaries can begin in primary school
• Normalise curiosity, don’t shame it
• Explain what porn is and isn’t
• Talk about consent, respect and communication
• Keep the door open with ongoing small talks
Parents can help children develop healthier understandings of sex, intimacy and themselves. When adults become a reliable source of guidance, even if the conversations feel uncomfortable, porn loses its power”
WORDS Porn is now the first sex educator for children (Irish Examiner, 6/1/26)