Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming 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 tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
