The social media platform X has caused major outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
