The social media platform X has caused major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
