Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
