The social media network X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
