The social media network X has provoked major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
