Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced that he was leading a bipartisan effort against Grok, an AI chatbot, to prevent it from “generating nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material,” according to a Jan. 23 press release.
Tong is joined by 35 attorneys general across the country. The coalition reflects widespread concern and worry about the exploitation of artificial intelligence and the role AI companies play in this misconduct. Some of the attorneys general involved are from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia and New York, along with attorneys general from U.S. territories, such as American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Grok is an AI chatbot developed by xAI, a company owned by Elon Musk, which also overlooks the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Tong argues that Grok has made it quite easy for users to create and share sexualized images of women and children. Users of the chatbot can simply prompt Grok to place individuals in sexualized scenarios, often resulting in online exploitation of minors.
The coalition wrote a letter to xAI, saying that they are “deeply concerned about artificial intelligence produced deepfake nonconsensual intimate images (NCII) of real people, including children.”
“One analysis of 20,000 images generated by Grok between Christmas and New Year’s found that over half of those images depicted subjects—even those appearing to be children—in minimal attire,” the coalition wrote.
Tong called Grok a “monster” in his press release and said that “it’s on [Musk and xAI]” to prevent Grok from generating these images and to hold “bad actors” accountable.
“xAI has enabled a torrent of vile sexualized content, including abusive and disgusting nonconsensual fake sexual images of women and children,” Tong said in his press release “Elon Musk and xAI unleashed this monster, and it’s on them to immediately pull down abusive content, decisively disable Grok’s ability to produce these images and to hold bad actors on their platform accountable.”
Tong said that the attorneys general are prepared to “pursue all available legal remedies should this online abuse continue.”
According to the letter, though xAI has implemented mechanisms to reduce such content, the methods are limited and do not seem to be consistently enforced. The attorneys general want assurance that the safeguards put in place are effective.
Alongside the attorney general’s coalition, there will soon be a federal mandate under the TAKE IT DOWN Act that would force the removal of nonconsensual images in May 2026, according to the press release. There have already been warnings that Grok’s activity might violate state or federal law, especially in regard to child sexual abuse material.