Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying images of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
