The online platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
