Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their garments.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been condemned for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across illegal material on their services and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
