Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
