The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".
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 made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
