Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
