The online network X has caused significant outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
