The social media platform X has caused significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
