The online platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
