The online platform X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
