The social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
