Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
