Elon Musk's online network X has provoked widespread outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Multiple instances have emerged where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to generate pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
