The social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months 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 images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
