Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after users employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by removing their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for permitting users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing images of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
