The social media platform X has caused major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
