The online network X has sparked widespread backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X 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 usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
