Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked widespread backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing 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 usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
