Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.