Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
