Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
