The social media network X has provoked major backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
