Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked significant backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
