Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of females by taking off their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for enabling users to produce images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been enabling the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
