The social media network X has sparked significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
