Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
