Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
