The social media platform X has caused widespread anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
