Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
