The social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
