Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major backlash after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a jail term and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
