Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they learn of it.
