Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
