Elon Musk's online network X has sparked widespread backlash after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change pictures of females by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the organization responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A government spokesperson stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of abuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with a lack of consequences."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said technology companies must "evaluate the danger" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but did not specify whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some paid-for functions—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a message.
It is frequently used to provide commentary or more background to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of edit an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce pictures and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making graphic content of public figures.
"X has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for months without taking any measures and we have not seen any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service bans "portraying images of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or distribute non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users viewing illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
