The social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
