Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
