The online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
