Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked widespread anger after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to provide commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "portraying images of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they learn of it.
