Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
