Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread anger after users used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their clothing.
Several instances have been seen where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
