The online network X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
