Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
