Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
