Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an posted image through its AI image editing tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "suitable steps" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
