Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
