Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked major backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of women by taking off their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
