The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
