Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
