The online network X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
