Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
