Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
