The social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for 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 law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
