Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
