Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their attire.
Numerous examples have been seen where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
