The social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
