Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant backlash after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
