The online network X has caused major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok 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 Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
