The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
