The social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
