Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
