Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
