The social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
