Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
