The social media network X has caused widespread anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
