The social media network X has caused major outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
