Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
