The online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
