Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or more background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the production and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of people in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
