Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
