Elon Musk's online network X has caused major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
