The social media network X has provoked major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
