UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall has joined calls to Elon Musk, X CEO, urging him to take swift and effective action against the torrent of sexualised images of women and girls being produced using his company’s Grok AI model.

Following contact from Ofcom, tech secretary Kendall called the recent rise in the use of Grok’s ‘spicy mode,’ which can be used to produce images of scantily clad people, “absolutely appalling.”

Reports have revealed a plethora of images generated by the xAI bot of women and even children in various states of undress. These non-consensual sexualised images do not show people fully nude, but still show images of real people in sexualised poses and in skimpy clothing.

Investigations have shown that images have been produced of children as young as five years old.

Kendall said that the UK government “cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these degrading images.”

She said in her statement: “Services and operators have a clear obligation to act appropriately. This is not about restricting freedom of speech but upholding the law.

“We have made intimate image abuse and cyberflashing priority offences under the Online Safety Act – including where images are AI-generated. This means platforms must prevent such content from appearing online and act swiftly to remove it if it does.”

She echoed the concerns of Ofcom, and supported their contact with xAI regarding the images.

“It is absolutely right that Ofcom is looking into this as a matter of urgency and it has my full backing to take any enforcement action it deems necessary.”

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X said in a statement: “We take action against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.

“Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”

The creation or sharing of sexually explicit images of a person without their consent is considered illegal under the UK’s Online Safety Act, which says that firms should take “appropriate steps” to mitigate the issue.