The social media network X has sparked major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
