The social media network X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
