Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
