The social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
