The social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
