The social media network X has sparked significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
