Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
