The social media platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
