Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit 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 sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
