Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
