Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
