Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
