The social media network X has sparked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
