The social media platform X has provoked major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
