Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
