The social media platform X has caused major anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
