Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
