The social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
