Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
