The social media network X has sparked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
