The online network X has caused significant backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
