Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
