Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
