Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
