The social media network X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
