The online network X has caused significant anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
