Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by stripping their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
