Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
