Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.