Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content 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 regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
