The social media network X has caused significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution 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 prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
