Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
