The social media platform X has caused significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing 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 usage rules prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
