The online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
