The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
