Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
