Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
