Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
