The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
