The social media network X has sparked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
