🔗 Share this article

The online network X has provoked widespread anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.

Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.

Developer Response and Legal Position

XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".

A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".

"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.

It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.

History of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.

"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a graphic way".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.

It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.