The social media network X has provoked major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
