Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
