The online network X has provoked widespread outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
