The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
