Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
