The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
