Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to create images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
