Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
