Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread 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 terms of service forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
