Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
