Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
