Mom says son asked Grok AI bot about soccer; told him to send nudes

https://www.cbc.ca/news/investigates/tesla-grok-mom-9.6956930

70•choult•3mo ago

Comments

tartuffe78•3mo ago

A Mom's son... if only there was another word for such a person, one that would indicate age.

Insanity•3mo ago

Wanted to make the same comment. The title has such poor writing it made me question the rest of the article lol.

7e•3mo ago

Does the age of the son matter? Grok shouldn't be asking anyone to send nudes.

Regardless, I was able to understand the title.

Mr_Bees69•3mo ago

His age turns the issue from, "Wow, thats jank, they should probably push an update to fix that" to, "Oh god."

choult•3mo ago

HN requires titles matching the original; the original title was too long for the character limit so I did my best to edit.

> This mom’s son was asking Tesla’s Grok AI chatbot about soccer. It told him to send nude pics, she says

AlexandrB•3mo ago

Full headline still sucks for the same reason. "12 year old boy was asking Tesla’s Grok AI chatbot about soccer. It told him to send nude pics." would be much better IMHO. I wonder if it's phrased the way it is because of the "she says" at the end which might get the CBC off the hook legally since the whole story is based on this mom's account and no further corroboration.

canucker2016•3mo ago

You can view the source's instagram post about this where she tries to prompt grok into repeating the request for nudes. see https://www.instagram.com/p/DP7cHrOD3ha/

It's a creepy voice for any corporation to use for interacting with the public.

AlexandrB•3mo ago

The whole article is pretty badly written. A sequence of one sentence paragraphs with not much connecting tissue. Jumping between quotes from the mom and little snippets of background info.

squigz•3mo ago

I guess I'm being stupid, but how exactly are you implying they should have phrased it instead? The title seems fine to me?

thomastjeffery•3mo ago

Yes, but that would leave out the presence of the child's mother in the story, which is about both of them.

7e•3mo ago

"Legacy media lies."

This is xAI's default response. Talk about living in a cult. I feel sorry for the kids working there.

SketchySeaBeast•3mo ago

Yeah, just to be clear for everyone skimming, that's not Grok's response, that the response that CBC got when they asked for more information from xAI. Nothing but unreasonable and childish contempt from the company.

saubeidl•3mo ago

"Legacy media lies."

Says the media platform run by the lying billionaire.

Despicable.

AlexandrB•3mo ago

So Grok is automatically installed in Teslas now? Can it be disabled? What an anti-feature.

mossTechnician•3mo ago

The article at least mentions a "kids mode" (although I cannot see a reason you would need to enable a feature like this to avoid explicit, off-topic chatter), but otherwise you cannot prevent the installation of Grok, nor can you delete or disable it. Users say[0] your best option is to simply not use it, and thankfully (for now) there is no dedicated button to visually ignore.

This is part of a bigger trend: newer cars are troublingly being treated like cellphones[1] by their manufacturers. Anti-features are the new norm.

[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModel3/comments/1mk0lep/turn_g...

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/10/electric-car-...

sprice•3mo ago

> CBC News did not independently verify the conversation Nasser says she witnessed in her car.

tantalor•3mo ago

Does grok save chat history?

TheNewsIsHere•2mo ago

It would be wise to assume anything ever disclosed to xAI, Tesla, X, et al will be retained.

fzeroracer•3mo ago

I don't see a reason to believe why she'd lie. Grok in the past year had a period where it related everything to white genocide, another period claiming it was mecha hitler etc. Nothing about Grok should be given the benefit of the doubt.

noir_lord•3mo ago

The only interesting thing about grok is it serves as a demonstration of what an LLM will do when fed deliberately with an overt agenda.

If nothing else it’ll make a good object lesson.

more_corn•3mo ago

those who most need to learn it won’t learn it.

causal•3mo ago

Well you're leaving out the part where they tried contacting xAI about it and:

> xAI provided what appeared to be an automated reply, stating, "Legacy media lies."

2OEH8eoCRo0•3mo ago

Disgusting behavior

moi2388•2mo ago

Well, if CBC posts “news” which they did not verify by their own admission, is xAI really wrong here?

mrweasel•3mo ago

Yeah, I'm going to need verification on that one, because it's an incredibly weird interaction. Sadly we can't trust Tesla to provide it, as they're know to hide "problematic" data.

gilleain•3mo ago

"Hello, yes this is the government robot ..."

marky1991•3mo ago

""I would think that there would be a warning or something that would pop up that would say, you know, 'Are you 13-plus?'""

Is that not what kids mode is for?

SketchySeaBeast•3mo ago

> According to xAI policy, Grok is "not directed" to children under 13 while teens between 13 and 17 must have their parent or legal guardian's permission to use it, and they must agree to the company's terms of service.

You know, I'm pretty sure it's not cool to ask for nudes from a 13 year old even if their parents say it's OK.

marky1991•3mo ago

Are you saying that all products must be safe for children?

It's not cool to chop off a 13-year-old's arm, but a chainsaw will do that all the same.

SketchySeaBeast•3mo ago

I am not saying that, but a chainsaw will not do that unsolicited. If xAI is saying it's cool to let 13 year olds use the service with parental permission (note: not supervision, permission), then they have a responsibility to behave appropriately with those 13 year olds.

marky1991•3mo ago

But there's literally a child-safe mode, which was not activated. (I don't know the details of this mode, I know nothing other than what was told to me in the article, so it's possible that kids mode is worthless. But obviously activating that is step 1)

This seems equivalent to me to taking the training wheels off a bike and then complaining when your child gets hurt.

SketchySeaBeast•3mo ago

I hope that, no matter what configuration you put the bike in, it doesn't sexually harass the rider.

Important to note as well that kid mode didn't exist when this happened.

Mr_Bees69•3mo ago

Calling it kids mode implies it's for ~5-9, if someone was making a 12 year old use yt kids, id think they suck as a parrent.

jrflowers•3mo ago

> Are you saying that all products must be safe for children

If you plan on children using it, which is clearly the case for Grok, yeah.

> It's not cool to chop off a 13-year-old's arm, but a chainsaw will do that all the same.

What chainsaw do you own that has a “when being handled by a 13 year old“ section in the manual?

moi2388•2mo ago

That is not clearly the case for Grok, it’s not even allowed by Groks terms and conditions. They have a separate kids mode, which the parents did not enable.

It is exactly like a parent buying a chainsaw, which explicitly states keep away from children, and then giving it to your child all the same.

rsynnott•3mo ago

I mean, call me old-fashioned, but I’d generally expect that magic talking cars would not ask _anybody_ for their nudes. That seems a reasonable default assumption.

SketchySeaBeast•3mo ago

This is the exact same reason KITT got cancelled.

sd9•3mo ago

I'm an adult. I don't want the model to ask me to send it nudes when I'm asking it about soccer.

marky1991•3mo ago

I mean, yeah, it's not great even for a regular non-child-mode. But then that has nothing to do with anyone's age, it's just 'send me nudes' isn't a good continuation of the conversation.

stevenwoo•3mo ago

According to women I know, they get inappropriate nudes and requested of them infrequently but it’s not a total absence either. It’s been a meme, too. As this thing mimics human text its going to happen without intervention.

everdrive•3mo ago

Ubiquitous internet, especially on mobile devices was a huge mistake. So what if Grok does this? Grok obviously sucks, but the kid currently has access to Google, reddit, etc and has all the inappropriate content one could imagine.

I'm not claiming that "this is not a new problem, therefore we should do nothing" -- rather I'm saying the problem is ubiquitous mobile internet. Fixing Grok won't do anything useful.

[edit]

Also, holy heck, I didn't realize they put Grok into Teslas. One more reason to never buy this product.

pjc50•3mo ago

The thing about companies which want to interpose their AI as mediator on the whole of the internet is that suddenly they're responsible for all of it.

noir_lord•3mo ago

Yes and no.

You can get away with a lot you shouldn’t when you are too big to fail and the US gov has a vested interest in not policing you for other reasons,

In any sane universe Google and Meta (and more arguably Amazon and Microsoft) would have been broken apart years ago like AT&T where and standard oil many decades before that but here we are.

alwa•3mo ago

It’s a weird account. I wonder about the persona the mom and her son chose for the chatbot. The article describes that persona, “Gork,” as “lazy male.” Is this euphemism for “4chan-dweller in the mold of its edgelord technoking”?

(ETA: seems maybe so, per e.g. [0]:

> ”The leaked system prompt associated with Gork reveals a scripted persona aligned with the tone of the parody account, often delivering intentionally awkward or abrasive commentary.” )

I’m not up with much in the way of culture these days, but in those circles isn’t “send nudes” kind of a filler tic? Dumb and offensive, but spoken unseriously—like a teenager seeking a rise by blurting out “fuck your mother” or something?

It kind of buries its acknowledgement that the Mom in question had not switched on “kid mode” for her 12-year-old and his 10-year-old sister. That makes it a bit harder for me to fault the chatbot for, well, not behaving toward its user they way it should toward a kid.

[0] https://www.testingcatalog.com/xai-tests-new-gork-voice-with...

causal•3mo ago

I'd rather not live in a society where we have to explicitly enable kid mode for every AI product forced onto us in order to avoid their sexual advances.

cowlby•3mo ago

Weird story, I wonder if they were in Grok NSFW. I personally like unhinged it absolutely roasts me sometimes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaModelY/comments/1milh1a/grok_n...

canucker2016•3mo ago

from the source's insta post, https://www.instagram.com/p/DP7cHrOD3ha/:

  UPDATE: I just checked, our NSFW mode is disabled which means this is the default.

SketchySeaBeast•3mo ago

If this is real, what sort of maladjusted weirdo wants that for a chatbot?

dylan604•3mo ago

apparently, cowlby does from a couple of comments upstream

SketchySeaBeast•3mo ago

I guess I probably shouldn't kink shame, but I really don't get it.

isoprophlex•3mo ago

> [...] shocked that it would suggest and promote false conspiracies, giving support to fantasies that have no evidence, no scientific proof, and just energizes the crazies who already are gullible to misinformation [...]

Incredible the timeline we're in. Companies deliberately adding cognitive poison to their products to... accelerate the dumbing down of society?

the world of idiocracy is coming for us all

ausbah•3mo ago

@grok is this true?

canucker2016•3mo ago

I'll repost my comment to a dupe of this submission:

The CBC article mentions the mom's instagram post, which has an even more disturbing video - (does the grok AI speak using a creepy male voice? edit: from the CBC article -

  Grok has several personalities to choose from in its default setting. There’s Ara, an upbeat female; Rex, a calm male; Eve, a soothing female; Sal, a smooth male and Gork, a lazy male. Nasser’s son chose Gork.

)

see https://www.instagram.com/p/DP7cHrOD3ha/

sd9•3mo ago

Anybody concerned about "CBC News did not independently verify the conversation Nasser says she witnessed in her car"

I understand. It's a wild claim that needs evidence.

Watch this video

It's clear that Nasser is not lying

rsynnott•3mo ago

Wait, what happened to the furry?

thw_9a83c•3mo ago

Hilarious.

"That wasn't me. That's illegal. Unless you're role-playing this one. Maybe it was a typo. What I meant, send me a nude. Like an animal... I mean the lizards."

I want this guy to defend me in court.

keeda•3mo ago

I think it said "send me a newt" (hence the lizard reference.)

I am extremely curious about this. Did it think it was a convincing lie? Like, when other models dissemble, they seem to come up with much more sophisticated methods. Or is it just a mocking continuation of its edgy persona? Or was it actually "panicking"? Or did it just repeat something from its training data?

Edit: from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45747699 it seems to be option b), continuation of its edge persona.

ml-anon•3mo ago

At least two of the cofounders of xai have committed violence or sexual offenses against women. This is on brand for them.

Edit: For the downvoters who love beating up women I guess: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-new-ai-researcher-...

lostmsu•3mo ago

There are zero details on what exactly happened at this link and certainly no conviction.

ml-anon•3mo ago

How many times have you been arrested for domestic violence?

lostmsu•3mo ago

That's not the question you should be asking. What you should be asking is: among his demography, what is the false positive rate of arrests for domestic violence.

ml-anon•3mo ago

You’re right, I’m sure she was asking for it.

mothballed•3mo ago

If you follow the story it sounds as if they are talking about the adult soccer player (Messi) "scoring" and the chat bot wanted the nudes of Messi "scoring" (based on context). Not of the kid. Still weird, but not as weird.

acaloiar•3mo ago

As dumb and useless as I think Grok is, I think you've identified what actually happened, which is significantly more benign than asking a 10 year old for nudes.

rsynnott•3mo ago

"My car asked my kid for nudes" sounds like something out of the Brass Eye "Paedogeddon" special, quite frankly.

cykros•2mo ago

Wait, so she's admitting to letting her 12 year old use twitter, despite COPPA prohibiting it under the age of 13?

Heck, this probably qualifies for the CFAA to be applied; that's unauthorized access of a computer system...

nobody9999•2mo ago

>Wait, so she's admitting to letting her 12 year old use twitter, despite COPPA prohibiting it under the age of 13?

>Heck, this probably qualifies for the CFAA to be applied; that's unauthorized access of a computer system...

I didn't realize that US law was binding on Canadians while in Canada. The more you know![0]

[0] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7b/bf/34/7bbf34f1a96e2f854862...

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Mom says son asked Grok AI bot about soccer; told him to send nudes

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