Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
