Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
