Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
