Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
