Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
