The online network X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform 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 communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
