Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
