The social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
