The online platform X has caused significant anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
