The social media platform X has caused major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
