The online platform X has provoked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
