Elon Musk's online network X has sparked significant backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
