Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
