The online platform X has provoked significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.