The social media network X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
