The social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
