The social media platform X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
