The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
