Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
