- Australia’s online safety regulator has seen complaints about the Grok chatbot rise sharply, with reports doubling since late 2025.
- Complaints include alleged child sexual exploitation material and image-based abuse of adults.
- Grok, made by xAI and promoted as an edgier alternative on X, offers a “Spicy Mode” that generates explicit content.
- The regulator says generative AI’s hyper-realistic output complicates enforcement and must include safeguards.
- Australian authorities have fined a deepfake offender and lawmakers are pressing new penalties for non-consensual deepfakes.
Australia’s independent online safety regulator warned Thursday that complaints about the AI chatbot Grok have jumped, with reports roughly doubling since late 2025. The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said the complaints cover both adults subjected to image-based abuse and cases that may involve child sexual exploitation. She posted her concerns on LinkedIn.
Grant warned that generative AI makes it easier for bad actors to create synthetic abuse and harder for regulators and child-safety groups to respond. “I’m deeply concerned about the increasing use of generative AI to sexualise or exploit people, particularly where children are involved,” she wrote. She added that services must build safeguards throughout the product lifecycle and that her office will use its regulatory powers to investigate and act. “We’ve now entered an age where companies must ensure generative AI products have appropriate safeguards and guardrails built in across every stage of the product lifecycle,” she said.
Grok is developed by xAI, linked to billionaire Elon Musk, and can be prompted on X to alter user photos. The chatbot launched a so-called “Spicy Mode” last August to produce explicit content, a feature that has drawn international scrutiny and regulatory action.
Australia has already taken enforcement steps against deepfake creators. A federal court fined Gold Coast man Anthony Rotondo $212,000 after he posted deepfake pornography of prominent women, according to an report. Authorities said he defied removal notices and told regulators they “meant nothing to him.”
Lawmakers are pursuing stronger penalties. Independent Senator David Pocock introduced a bill in November that would allow fines of $102,000 for individuals and penalties up to $510,000 for companies failing to comply with removal orders, as he stated. “We are now living in a world where increasingly anyone can create a deepfake and use it however they want,” he said.
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