The social media network X has provoked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
