Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
