The online network X has sparked significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
