Elon Musk's online platform X has sparked significant outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of women by removing their garments.
Several instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to render them in swimwear without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an automatically-generated message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok has the ability to stop these forms of abuse if they desired to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is commonly used to give commentary or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also can edit an posted picture through its artificial intelligence picture modification tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been condemned for allowing users to create images and footage with nudity and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate material of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the production and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "showing images of people in a graphic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute private pictures or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
