Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
