The social media network X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
