Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
