The social media platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
