Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous instances have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
