Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, other than an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted image through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of creating sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to remove it swiftly when they become aware of it.
