Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
