Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
