The social media network X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
