Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
