Kate Middleton targeted by AI-generated sexualised images created by X chatbot Grok

Kate Middleton is among several public figures who have reportedly been targeted by users of X’s artificial intelligence assistant, Grok, which has been used to produce a wave of fake “undressed” images of women and children.

The chatbot has attracted controversy since it first launched in November 2023, after it was revealed that it could respond to user queries with misinformation and conspiracy theories.

It caused outrage last year after praising Adolf Hitler and in a separate incident it repeatedly referenced “white genocide” in South Africa in response to unrelated questions, an issue the company said was caused by an “unauthorised modification”.

Britain’s media regulator Ofcom says it has made “urgent contact” with X and its AI division, xAI, after the BBC reported that some users have asked the chatbot to digitally alter real photos, making women and girls appear in bikinis or sexually suggestive poses without their consent.

UK technology minister Liz Kendall has urged the social media platform to act immediately, describing the material as “absolutely appalling”.

“No one should have to go through the ordeal of seeing intimate deepfakes of themselves online,” Ms Kendall said.

“We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls.

“X needs to deal with this urgently.”

The Princess of Wales was reportedly one of those targeted, along with British journalist Samantha Smith, who told the BBC’s PM program that the fake images left her feeling “dehumanised and reduced into a sexual stereotype”.

“While it wasn’t me that was in states of undress, it looked like me, and it felt like me, and it felt as violating as if someone had actually posted a nude or a bikini picture of me,” she said.

The mother of one of Elon Musk’s sons has also accused his company’s AI chatbot of generating sexually suggestive images of her from when she was a child.

“Grok is now undressing photos of me as a child. This is a website where the owner says to post photos of your children. I really don’t care if people want to call me ‘scorned’; this is objectively horrifying, illegal, and if it has happened to anybody else, DM me. I got time,” Ashley St Clair wrote on X.

Despite asking Grok to remove the AI-generated images, screenshots of the disturbing photos remain on the platform.

Unsettling screenshots also appear to show X users requesting Grok to generate images of 14-year-old Stranger Things actress Nell Fisher in a bikini.

X’s Safety account said on Sunday that it removes all illegal content on the platform and permanently suspends ‌accounts involved.

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

This is not the first time Kate has been targeted with intimate imagery. In 2012, long-lens shots of her sunbathing topless in the south of France were taken and published without consent. She and Prince William later won a legal battle over the photographs and received damages.

Buckingham Palace has not yet commented on the matter.

- With Reuters