Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
