Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread anger after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change images of women by stripping their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been used to digitally undress female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit scenarios.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the risk" of people viewing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently examining X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or more context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to produce photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of public figures.
"X has been allowing the generation and sharing of these images for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of people in a pornographic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
