The social media network X has sparked major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
