The social media network X has sparked widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
