Elon Musk's online platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by taking off their clothing.
Numerous cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
