The online network X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
