Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
