The online platform X has provoked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
