Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
