The online platform X has caused significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
