The online platform X has caused significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
