Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
