The online platform X has caused widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
