The online network X has provoked widespread anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material 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 artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
