Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
