The social media platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
