Elon Musk's online network X has provoked significant backlash after individuals utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of females by removing their attire.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to virtually strip women to render them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Company Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"The platform could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is often used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to create images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or share deepfakes or illegal content" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to remove it quickly when they learn of it.
