Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
