The social media platform X has sparked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
