The online network X has caused widespread anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
