The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation 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 terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
