The online platform X has caused significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
