Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
