Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
