The social media network X has sparked major anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive 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 "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
