The online network X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
