The online platform X has provoked widespread outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
