One man’s heaven is another woman’s hell. “@Grok, put her in lingerie.” “Remove her clothes.”
Users of X’s (also known as Twitter) artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok discovered within the first few weeks of January 2026 that those inputs were enough to strip a lady of her dignity. In just 11 days, it publicly generated over 3 million sexualized versions of women’s and children’s images for free. But none of them consented to that. Imagine the horror they must have felt waking up to see their faces plastered on pornographic materials across the internet.
In response, the Philippines’ Department of Information and Technology (DICT) was quick to ban Grok amid the surging number of complaints concerning child pornography. Disappointingly, the ban lasted only 5 days, as DICT approved the verbal commitment by xAI, the AI company that developed Grok, to corrective measures.
The government moved on afterward; the victims did not. Neither should we.
Users perpetrated this gross violation, not Grok. Rapidly advancing technology was used not because it made such a thing possible, but because someone deliberately chose to use it that way.
Stories about Angel Aquino appearing in a fabricated, explicit video and about Queen Hera’s daughter’s edited image uploaded to the Dark Web both convey the same sentiment: the helplessness of watching your own likeness become a plaything in a stranger’s hands. Abuse now invades not just homes and public spaces, but also remained unchecked in virtual spaces powered by algorithms and AI tools that profit from women’s objectification.
AI did not instigate digital violence; it was industrialized, monetized, and amplified to make it more widely available to anyone, including those with ill intent. It’s a disturbing reckoning: AI is now treated as an easily accessible weapon to equip, especially against women and children.
What continues to enable this maltreatment is not the algorithm itself, but the people who keep feeding it until it has learned to do the dirty work for them. We have been tolerating such misconduct and looking away, letting shame fester in the objects of ridicule rather than in the provocateurs. We treat this issue as an elephant in the room until it inevitably is in our faces. Being a bystander is never neutral; it is a choice to remain passive rather than speak up. I, too, was once a silent witness until realizing that turning my head away made me an enabler.
Harm is irreversible for the women and children objectified by sexualized deepfakes. Ultimately, pornographic AI will keep flourishing while consumers exist—corrupt men intent on degrading those they see as inferior. A patriarchal society that grants cisheterosexual men ownership over women’s bodies will perpetuate rape culture and sexism, whether fueled by a male billionaire’s profit motive or an average man’s lust and misogyny.
We owe victims more than temporary bans and empty promises. While their voices are suppressed, ours are not, giving us an opportunity to act.
We must urge the need to pass weightier laws that criminalize the creation and sharing of sexualized AI content, mandate strict platform compliance, and force online communities to take immediate action. Combat technology-facilitated violence against women and children (VAWC) and strengthen the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation Materials (Anti-OSAEC/Anti-CSAEM) law. This is not asking too much, as it is the bare minimum of accountability that victims deserve and continue to demand.
Editor’s Note: This article was first issued in the January to May 2026 Second Semester Newsletter of Atenews.
