The online network X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
