Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
