Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
