Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
