The social media network X has provoked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
