Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
