Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major backlash after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of females by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have been seen where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
