Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
