Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
