Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
