Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
