Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
