Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
