🔗 Share this article

The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their attire.

Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Reaction and Regulatory Position

XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".

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

Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.

Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.

It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.

History of Controversy and Policy

The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.

XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".

In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.