The online network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
