Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of women by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting likenesses of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
