Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
