Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by taking off their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, remained silent to inquiries, except for an standard message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were obligated to take "necessary steps" to "lessen the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to delete it promptly when they become aware of it.
