Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of females by removing their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the technology has been employed to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a jail term and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or further context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its AI image editing function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
