Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
