Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
