The online platform X has provoked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
