Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous instances have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
