Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
