The online platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
