Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial 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 impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
