Elon Musk's online network X has sparked major outrage after people used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by stripping their attire.
Numerous examples have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy a lack of consequences."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to generate pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past accused of creating inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the production and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any action by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying likenesses of individuals in a pornographic way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or share private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "necessary steps" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
