The social media platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
