The social media network X has sparked major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
