Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant anger after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the system has been employed to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
