The online network X has caused major anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
