The social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
