Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
