Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their clothing.
Multiple examples have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to questions, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for enabling users to produce photos and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
