The social media platform X has provoked major outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
