The online platform X has provoked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
