The social media platform X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
