Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by taking off their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material 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 AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
