Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to alter photos of females by stripping their garments.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized situations.
Company 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 government representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these types of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the potential" of people viewing unlawful material on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some additional features—which answers X users' prompts when they tag it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional background to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been faulted for permitting users to generate images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been allowing the generation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of individuals in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "create or circulate private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
