Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
