🔗 Share this article

The online platform X has caused significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.

Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.

Company Reaction and Legal Stance

XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".

"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.

Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.

It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.

History of Controversy and Rules

The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of public figures.

"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.

XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.

It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.