The social media network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
