The social media network X has sparked significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
