The social media platform X has sparked major outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
