Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked significant backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer commentary or further background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can modify an posted picture through its AI image editing feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
