Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
