Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
