The online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
