Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by taking off their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
