Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
