Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
