Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
