The social media platform X has provoked major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X 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 usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
