Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform 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 examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
