Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
