The online network X has caused significant anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
