The online network X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
