The social media platform X has provoked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
