Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
