The social media network X has sparked major anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
