Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
