The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
