The social media network X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
