Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their clothing.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of individuals in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
