Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in creating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
