Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
