Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
