The social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
