Elon Musk's online network X has caused major backlash after people utilized its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Numerous instances have been seen where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to questions, aside from an automatically-generated message stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being proposed to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated images.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is commonly used to offer commentary or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users coming across unlawful material on their services and to remove it promptly when they learn of it.
