The social media network X has caused major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
