The online network X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
