The online network X has provoked significant anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
