The social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
