Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
