Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
