The social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
Elena Hartwell is a multidisciplinary artist and educator passionate about fostering creative communities in London.