The social media network X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
