Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
