Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
