Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
