Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
