Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
