The online network X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
