The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
