The online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
