The online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
