Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy 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 services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
