Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
