Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
