The online platform X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
