The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
