Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. 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 types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
