The social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
