The social media network X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
