Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting images of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
