The online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
