Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major anger after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by removing their attire.
Multiple examples have surfaced where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear without permission, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company 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 new laws is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
