The online platform X has caused significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
