Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
