The online platform X has caused significant anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
