Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
