The online network X has provoked significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
