The social media platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
