The online network X has sparked significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
