Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
