Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
