The social media network X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
