Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to outlaw nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable measures" to "minimize the danger" of users coming across illegal content on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
