The online platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
