The online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
