Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"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."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
