Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
