The online platform X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures 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 prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
