Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
