Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
