Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
