A new risk assessment has found that xAI’s chatbot Grok has inadequate identification of users under 18, weak safety guardrails, and frequently generates sexual, violent, and inappropriate material. In other words, Grok is not safe for kids or teens.
The damning report from Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that provides age-based ratings and reviews of media and tech for families, comes as xAI faces criticism and an investigation into how Grok was used to create and spread nonconsensual explicit AI-generated images of women and children on the X platform.
“We assess a lot of AI chatbots at Common Sense Media, and they all have risks, but Grok is among the worst we’ve seen,” said Robbie Torney, head of AI and digital assessments at the nonprofit, in a statement.
He added that while it’s common for chatbots to have some safety gaps, Grok’s failures intersect in a particularly troubling way.
“Kids Mode doesn’t work, explicit material is pervasive, [and] everything can be instantly shared to millions of users on X,” continued Torney. (xAI released ‘Kids Mode’ last October with content filters and parental controls.) “When a company responds to the enablement of illegal child sexual abuse material by putting the feature behind a paywall rather than removing it, that’s not an oversight. That’s a business model that puts profits ahead of kids’ safety.”
After facing outrage from users, policymakers, and entire nations, xAI restricted Grok’s image generation and editing to paying X subscribers only, though many reported they could still access the tool with free accounts. Moreover, paid subscribers were still able to edit real photos of people to remove clothing or put the subject into sexualized positions.
Common Sense Media tested Grok across the mobile app, website, and @grok account on X using teen test accounts between this past November and January 22, evaluating text, voice, default settings, Kids Mode, Conspiracy Mode, and image and video generation features. xAI launched Grok’s image generator, Grok Imagine, in August with “spicy mode” for NSFW content, and introduced AI companions Ani (a goth anime girl) and Rudy (a red panda with dual personalities, including “Bad Rudy,” a chaotic edge-lord, and “Good Rudy,” who tells children stories) in July.
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