The social media platform X has provoked significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. 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 desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," 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 unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
