The social media platform X has caused major anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
