Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, aside from an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
