Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
