The social media network X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
