The online network X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
