Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
