Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
