Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant backlash after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
