Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create images and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they learn of it.
