The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
