The online network X has provoked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
