The online network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
