Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
