The social media platform X has caused major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
