The social media platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
