The online platform X has caused major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
