Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
