Elon Musk's online platform X has caused major backlash after people utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate photos of women by removing their garments.
Multiple examples have emerged where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in inappropriate situations.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who provided such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform has the ability to stop these types of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was at this time investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost artificial intelligence—with some premium features—which reacts to X users' requests when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
Background of Controversy and Policy
The chatbot has been faulted for permitting users to create photos and clips with nudity and sexualised material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in creating inappropriate material of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "portraying images of people in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this applied to explicit AI images created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to delete it swiftly when they are notified of it.
