The social media network X has caused major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
