The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
