Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
