The social media network X has caused major anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
