Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
