The online platform X has caused major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
