Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
