Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
