The social media platform X has sparked major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
