Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
