Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
