The social media network X has caused major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
