Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter photos of women by removing their attire.
Several instances have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it swiftly when they learn of it.
