The social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
