The social media network X has provoked major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
