The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
