The online platform X has provoked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
