The online network X has provoked major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
