Elon Musk's online platform X has caused widespread backlash after people used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their clothing.
Numerous examples have been seen where the technology has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to render them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the organization that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification software. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such tools would "receive a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to provide reactions or more background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also able to alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for enabling users to create pictures and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously accused of making graphic material of public figures.
"X has been permitting the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any challenge by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "showing likenesses of individuals in a pornographic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this included explicit AI images created with AI.
It said networks such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it promptly when they are notified of it.
