Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent 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 tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
