Elon Musk's online network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple instances have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "portraying likenesses of persons in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
