The online platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
