Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after individuals employed its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change pictures of women by taking off their attire.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to virtually strip female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to put them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being proposed to prohibit nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Platform Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is often used to provide reactions or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also able to modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been faulted for allowing users to produce images and footage with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was previously accused of generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have not seen any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to remove it quickly when they become aware of it.
