Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant anger after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
