Elon Musk's online platform X has provoked major anger after people employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to alter images of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Position
XAI, the firm that created Grok, remained silent to inquiries, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government official stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a upcoming law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to provide reactions or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the production and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any action by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they are notified of it.
