The online network X has provoked widespread backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
