The online platform X has caused major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
