The social media platform X has sparked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
