Elon Musk's social media network X has caused major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by removing their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to place them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' queries when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for enabling users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
