Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
