The social media network X has caused significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
