Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant anger after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their garments.
Several instances have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
