Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major outrage after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of females by removing their clothing.
Several cases have surfaced where the system has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, remained silent to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to prohibit nudification technology. Under a upcoming law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the potential" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which reacts to X users' prompts when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of creating sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy prohibits "depicting images of people in a graphic fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "create or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
