Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
