Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
