The online platform X has sparked major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
