The online platform X has caused widespread outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
