The online network X has provoked significant anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
