The online network X has provoked widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
