The social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation 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 terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
