Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform 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 Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
