Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
