Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
