The social media network X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
