Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
