Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
