Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
