Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
