The online platform X has caused major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.