The social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
