Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is commonly used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded picture through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "appropriate measures" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they become aware of it.
