The social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
