Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major anger after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter images of females by stripping their clothing.
Several instances have surfaced where the tool has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
