The online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
