The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
