Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been employed to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to questions, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or further context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create pictures and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images 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 "portraying images of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
