Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked major outrage after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their attire.
Numerous cases have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and distribution of these images for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting images of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this covered sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
