Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
