Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
