Ofcom noted that in its view, CSAM does include "AI-generated imagery, deepfakes and other manipulated media," which "would fall under the category of a 'pseudo-photograph.' As Ofcom explained, "If the impression conveyed by a pseudo-photograph is that the person shown is a child, then the photo should be treated as showing a child." Similarly, "manipulated images and videos such as deepfakes should be considered within the scope" of intimate image abuse, Ofcom said.
Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk's company xAI, as concerns grew among global authorities that it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing scrutiny of generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, along with concerns that existing safeguards are failing to prevent their abuse.
Her words came in reaction to the growing scandal of Elon Musk's Grok AI tool being used to digitally undress photos of women and children to create public deepfaked sexualised images of them without their consent. The row rumbled on through the weekend, with the deputy prime minister, David Lammy, telling the Guardian on Saturday that JD Vance, the US vice-president, agreed that the proliferation of AI-generated sexualised images of women and children was entirely unacceptable.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Since X's users started using Grok to undress women and children using deepfake images, I have been waiting for what I assumed would be inevitable: X getting booted from Apple's and Google's app stores. The fact that it hasn't happened yet tells me something serious about Silicon Valley's leadership: Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are spineless cowards who are terrified of Elon Musk.
The conservative writer and political strategist Ashley St Clair had just put her young son to bed when she received a text from a friend with a link to a page on X. When she opened it, she says she saw a photo of Grok undressing me and putting me in a bikini'. St Clair was not alone. In recent weeks, countless women have found their images digitally manipulated online by Grok, at the request of X users, to disrobe them.
Taoiseach rejects suggestion that current legislation is not strong enough to deal with issue Women's Aid removes itself from X, calling the crisis a 'tipping point' Human rights lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher said such sexualised abuse of children online has 'devastating' impacts Ministers are scrambling to find a way to combat an explosion of digitally created images of semi-nude women and children on the social media platform X.
Generative models learn an executive's tone and syntax from public posts, press releases and meeting transcripts. Attackers then craft messages indistinguishable from authentic correspondence. But the real innovation isn't the text, it's the choreography. A fraudulent email may serve only as the opening move. Within minutes, the target receives a confirming voice message that sounds like the executive whose name appears in the signature block. A deepfaked video may follow, asking for "final authorization." Email opens the door; other channels walk through it.
We're in a new time now, and AI slop looks so good, it's hard to tell from the real thing. I've been fooled by it. You probably have, too, even if you don't think you have. For example, this extremely realistic video of Nicolás Maduro doing TikTok dances in prison with Diddy. You know it's AI only because it's improbable, not because the video quality is poor.
The European Commission is intensifying its investigation into X due to the way in which the AI tool Grok is being used to generate sexualized deepfakes. This follows a series of recent reports from France, as previously reported by Techzine , which show that Grok generated explicit sexual images involving children. The case has led to criminal proceedings by the Paris Public Prosecutor's Office. In addition, French ministers are calling for the regulator ARCOM to be involved under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
On the left of one such billboard is a startling reality-bending image of former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau coiled around a stripper pole. Another billboard features an echo of the much-memed deepfake of Pope Francis in a stylish puffer coat. On the right of both billboards is an, evidently real, often sweaty, intimidatingly fit person in workout gear. Across both is the tagline, "Question Everything but Yourself," followed by the now familiar "Equinox It's not Fitness. It's Life."
AI-Enhanced Phishing and Deepfakes: No longer are phishing emails riddled with obvious errors. AI tools can instantly craft convincing messages by harvesting content from social media and corporate sites, personalizing scams to increase their effectiveness. Adding to this, deepfake technology enables cybercriminals to mimic voices and even video images of executives to authorize wire transfers or issue fake instructions, making fraud exponentially harder to detect.
Rather than training people to spot visual glitches in fake images or audio, Bores said policymakers and the tech industry should lean on a well-established cryptographic approach similar to what made online banking possible in the 1990s. Back then, skeptics doubted consumers would ever trust financial transactions over the internet. The widespread adoption of HTTPS-using digital certificates to verify that a website is authentic-changed that.
Some users of popular chatbots are generating bikini deepfakes using photos of fully clothed women as their source material. Most of these fake images appear to be generated without the consent of the women in the photos. Some of these same users are also offering advice to others on how to use the generative AI tools to strip the clothes off of women in photos and make them appear to be wearing bikinis.
Sora2 is the latest video AI model from OpenAI. The system generates completely artificial short videos from text, images, or brief voice input. Since October 2025, there has also been API access that developers can use to automatically create and publish AI videos. As a result, the number of artificial clips continues to grow every day. Many of them look astonishingly real and are almost indistinguishable from real footage for users.
The Turing test, a long-established tool for measuring machine intelligence, gauges the point at which a text-generating machine can fool a human into thinking it's not a robot. ChatGPT passed that benchmark earlier this year, inaugurating a new technological era, though not necessarily one of superhuman intelligence. More recently, however, artificial intelligence passed another threshold, a kind of Turing test for the eye: the images and videos that A.I. can produce are now sometimes indistinguishable from real ones.