Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked widespread outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Several cases have been seen where the technology has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
