The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
