The social media network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
