Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
