The online platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
