The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
