Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
