Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of females by removing their garments.
Multiple instances have surfaced 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 inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' prompts when they reference it in a post.
It is often used to offer commentary or further context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
