Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
