Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
