The online platform X has provoked major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
