The social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
