Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread outrage after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous instances have surfaced where the technology has been used to virtually strip female subjects to render them in swimwear without permission, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or more context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
