The online platform X has sparked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
