Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
