Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major backlash after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm behind Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being introduced to outlaw nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they reference it in a post.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not seen any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
