The social media network X has caused widespread backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
