The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
