The online platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
