The social media platform X has caused major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
