A wave of humiliating sexualised imagery must prompt regulators and politicians to step up

An online trend involving asking Grok, the Elon Musk-owned chatbot, to undress photographs of women and girls and show them wearing bikinis has rightly sparked outrage in the UK and internationally. Earlier this week Liz Kendall, the science and technology secretary, described the proliferation of the digitally altered pictures, some of which are overtly sexualised or violent, as “unacceptable in decent society”. What happens next will depend on whether she and her colleagues are prepared to follow through on such remarks. The government’s generally enthusiastic approach to AI, and the growing role they see for it in public services, do not inspire confidence in their ability to confront such threats.

In addition to the deluge of bikini images, the Internet Watch Foundation, a charity, has evidence that Grok Imagine (an AI tool that generates images and videos from prompts) has been used to create illegal child sexual abuse images. Yet while X says that it removes such material, there is no sign of safeguards being tightened in response to bikini images that are cruel and violating even where they do not break the law.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Whether you have a double or a king size, with a little bit of help, you can achieve a clutter-free bedroom

La conduite autonome BlueCruise de Ford passera au niveau 3 d'ici 2028. Cette technologie devrait être disponible même sur sa future voiture électrique à 30 000 dollars. La marque ne s'interdit pas non plus d'entrer dans le terrain des taxis autonomes.

En 2025, la Turquie a vu ses ventes de voitures électriques augmenter de 90 % et atteindre 17,5 % de part de marché. Un rythme d’adoption bien plus rapide qu’en France, dans un marché qui est loin d’être marginal sur le plan automobile.