The online platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
