The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
