Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
