Response to AI Being Used to Generate CSAM
January 5, 2026
Fears about the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to generate child sexual abuse materials (CSAM, often referred to in law as “child pornography”) are proving well-founded. This week it was reported that the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musks’s xAI platform has generated sexualized images of children that have been shared on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). For several days, users have been able to get Grok, the xAI chatbot, to create sexual images of children “in minimal clothing,” which goes against the company’s user guidelines. On January 2, 2026 it was reported that “many users on X have prompted Grok to generate sexualized, nonconsensual AI-altered versions of images in recent days, in some cases removing people’s clothing without their consent.”
The capacity for AI to generate CSAM is a well-documented problem. For example, a 2023 Stanford study found that a dataset used to train a number of popular AI image-generation tools contained over 1000 CSAM images, promoting their ability to generate new CSAM images in response to user requests.
In spite of this risk being well known by 2023, if not before, in October 2025 it was announced that ChatGPT, OpenAI, and Elon Musk’s xAI were removing longstanding restrictions and would allow AI engines to produce pornography. There was one important exception within that disturbing news cycle: the CEO of Microsoft’s AI program said that allowing AI to produce pornography was “dangerous,” and announced that his company would not allow or promote the use of their technology to create pornography.
AI producing sexualized images of children is a predictable and avoidable problem, but xAI and several other platforms have chosen profits over safety by allowing their tools to produce pornographic materials and by implementing insufficient safeguards against the production of CSAM.
Through our legislative advocacy, training, and education initiatives, Street Grace is actively engaged in the fight against the expanding pornography industry and commercial sex trade, and we urge you to join us. We encourage you to:
Contact your state and federal legislators, urging them to introduce legislation prohibiting the production of AI pornography, and to support current bills to enhance online protections against all obscene content.
Boycott Chat GTP, Open AI, xAI, and any other platform that allows the generation of pornography. We also recommend the use of Microsoft and any other AI tools that do not allow generation of pornography.
Contribute to organizations such as Street Grace that oppose normalization of the sex trade, pornography, and CSAM.
