The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
