Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major outrage after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have emerged where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
