The social media platform X has sparked major outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
