Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their attire.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to put them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was at this time looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been faulted for enabling users to produce pictures and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they are notified of it.
