The social media network X has caused widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
