Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
