The social media platform X has sparked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
