Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
