WASHINGTON/LONDON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Britain's data regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office, said on Wednesday it had asked Elon Musk's X to clarify how it was complying with data protection laws following concerns that Grok, X's built-in artificial intelligence chatbot, was flooding the site with sexually abusive images of women.  

"We have contacted X and xAI" - X's owner - "to seek clarity on the measures they have in place to comply with UK data protection law and protect individuals' rights," the ICO said in a statement, acknowledging reports that raised "serious concerns" over the chatbot's output.

Separately, in the U.S. state of New Mexico, state Attorney General Raul Torrez accused Grok of being one of several AI platforms "which lack basic safeguards to ensure that their users do not violate the dignity and privacy rights of others, especially children."

Torrez said he was "extremely concerned" over the images, promising in a statement to "aggressively police this space."

xAI did not return a message seeking a reaction to the ICO or Torrez's comments.

Hyper-realistic and sexually degrading images of real-life women have flooded X since Grok began complying with user requests to virtually strip people in photographs down to barely-there bikinis or lingerie.

Officials around the world have expressed disgust with the surge of nonconsensual AI imagery on X, with Germany's media minister on Tuesday telling Reuters that what he was seeing on the site "looks like the industrialisation of sexual harassment."

In the United States - where xAI owner Musk wields enormous power - the reaction has been more muted. Federal officials contacted by Reuters have declined comment or failed to return messages.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which describes itself as the largest child protection organization in the United States, said Tuesday that technology companies "have a responsibility to prevent their tools from being used to sexualize or exploit children."

The center's statement didn't mention Grok, X, or Musk.

(Reporting by Raphael Satter and William James, Editing by Paul Sandle and Lincoln Feast.)