The online platform X has sparked significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
