The online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
