The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
