Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
