Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to virtually strip women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, did not respond to inquiries, except for an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification tools. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was presently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to provide reactions or more background to other users' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Controversy and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to create pictures and footage with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the creation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "portraying likenesses of persons in a pornographic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or circulate deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "appropriate steps" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to delete it quickly when they are notified of it.
