The online network X has caused major outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
