The social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
