The social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
