Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant 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 impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
