Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
