Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
