Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
