Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—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 further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
