The online platform X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
