Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
