Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous cases have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
