Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
