Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have surfaced where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexualized scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate images and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and spread of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users coming across unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
