The social media network X has caused major anger after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
