Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing 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 acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
