Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
