The online platform X has caused significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons 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 created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
