Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread anger after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of women by stripping their garments.
Several examples have emerged where the tool has been employed to virtually strip women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization behind Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, except for an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to outlaw nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "face a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Platform Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not specify whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer commentary or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can modify an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
History of Controversy and Policy
The system has been faulted for enabling users to create photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "depicting likenesses of individuals in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or distribute private pictures or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were obligated to take "suitable actions" to "minimize the risk" of users coming across unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
