Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
