The social media network X has caused major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
