Elon Musk's online network X has provoked major outrage after individuals utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have surfaced where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to place them in inappropriate scenarios.
Developer Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a upcoming criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a jail term and significant fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people viewing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning AI-generated images.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer commentary or additional background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for enabling users to generate photos and footage with explicit content and sexualised material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of public figures.
"X has been enabling the production and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing images of people in a sexually explicit way".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and clarified this covered explicit AI images created with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal content on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
