The social media network X has sparked widespread anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
