Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
