The online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
