The social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
