The online network X has provoked major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
