The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
