Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
