Elon Musk's social media network X has caused significant backlash after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
