Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
