Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
