Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major outrage after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by removing their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, did not respond to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "be subject to a jail term and substantial fines".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "assess the risk" of people viewing unlawful material on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide commentary or additional background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been criticised for permitting users to create images and clips with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of making sexually explicit content of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of people in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users coming across illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they are notified of it.
