The social media platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind 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 ban nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
