The social media platform X has caused major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
