The social media platform X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
