Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
