Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
