The online platform X has sparked major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
