Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
