The social media network X has sparked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
