Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked major anger after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.
Numerous examples have emerged where the system has been used to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional features—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to create pictures and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the generation and distribution of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they are notified of it.
