The online network X has caused widespread anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
