Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of women by removing their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
