The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
