Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
