The social media platform X has caused significant anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
