The online network X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
