The social media platform X has caused major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
