Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
