Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
