Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread anger after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
