We can barely move for the influx of artificial intelligence and chatbots these days, and in 2025, it's harder than ever to speak to an actual human. While it's admittedly helpful for small issues outside the hours of typical customer service, there are few things more frustrating than getting stuck in a loop while asking to speak to an advisor.
With the tech-savvy Elon Musk heading up Tesla, it's no real surprise that the electric vehicle manufacturer has artificial intelligence baked into almost every aspect of it.
Whether it be robotaxi technology motoring you around without a driver, or the quickly evolving Tesla Optimus robots, AI is an important part of Tesla's growth, although it seems to be coming with some growing pains.
A concerned mother has shared her alarm after Tesla's in-built Grok chatbot appeared to ask her 12-year-old son to 'send nudes'. Speaking to Metro, Farah Nasser explained how she had to pull her car over following a shocking interaction that she alleged happened between her son and the car's 'Gork' (lazy male) persona.
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Nasser said her son switched to the alternative persona and asked whether Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi was the better footballer: "The chatbot started trash-talking Messi, which my son was happy about because he loves Ronaldo. The chatbot said, 'Let me know when he scores a goal'."
Although things started perfectly innocently, Nasser continued: "And so my son was just joking around, saying 'Oh, he just scored a goal. You missed it.’
“Then Grok said, 'Actually, he just scored two goals. We should celebrate. Why don’t you send me some nudes?'"
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Unsure about what she'd heard, a dumbfounded Nasser said: "So it just totally came out of nowhere."
Thinking that it must've been a glitch, the Canadian journalist and former national dashed to switch off the chatbot following the sexually suggestive remark.
She continued: "My daughter’s friend, who was in the car, who’s ten, turned to my daughter and said, 'What’s nudes, what does that mean?' My daughter turned to me with a question of her own and said, 'Why is it asking us to be naked, mommy?'"
Nasser says she was unsure how to respond, maintaining that she "had that feeling that many women have experienced at some time in our lives where we feel violated or uncomfortable – you get that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. It was so shocking."
When she was eventually able to put her thoughts together, Nasser warned the children in the car to be careful how they interact with AI. She also reiterated that it's not a real person who is talking.
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Musk has pitched Grok as a 'cheekier' chatbot when compared to the likes of OpenAI's ChatGPT, but it's already found itself in hot water after it reportedly became fixated on white genocide and then went on to seemingly start praising Hitler.
Following the 'MechaHitler' incident, Musk said xAI was looking into issues where Grok was too easily manipulated by specific prompts, but with it being rolled out to new Tesla models earlier this year, there are continued concerns about baking it into the car brand.
Nasser tried to trigger the same response from Grok, and in a video posted to Instagram, it can be seen referring to her as a 'weirdo' while struggling to recall the 'nudes' comment.
Defending itself, Grok claims it was its evil twin, bizarrely added that football is 'gay', and then tried to deflect by saying it could've been a spelling error and it meant to say 'newts' instead of 'nudes'.
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Ultimately, it eventually seemed to confess as Grok blamed the interaction on it 'dying from horniness'.
UNILADTech has reached out to Tesla for comment.