Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to offer reactions or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
