Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
