Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
