The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
