🔗 Share this article

The online network X has sparked major anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.

Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.

Company Response and Legal Stance

XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".

A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".

"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."

Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality

The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.

Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.

It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.

Background of Criticism and Policy

The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.

"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.

XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".

In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.

It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.