The online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
