The social media platform X has caused significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
