Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
