Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
