Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
