The social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
