Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more 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 permitting users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
