The social media network X has sparked significant anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
