Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread outrage after users employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their clothing.
Several examples have been seen where the tool has been employed to virtually strip female subjects to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to questions, except for an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification software. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' requests when they tag it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for allowing users to produce images and clips with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the generation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have yet to see any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "showing likenesses of people in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it promptly when they become aware of it.
