Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked significant outrage after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, remained silent to questions, except for an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently examining X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an posted picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting images of people in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
