The online network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
