Elon Musk's social media platform X has provoked widespread outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to alter pictures of women by taking off their clothing.
Several cases have emerged where the technology has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to render them in bikinis without permission, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Company Response and Regulatory Position
XAI, the firm responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, aside from an standard response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government spokesperson stated that legislation is being proposed to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of misuse if they wanted to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Functionality
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "consider the risk" of people seeing illegal content on their services, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they mention it in a tweet.
It is frequently used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an posted picture through its AI image editing tool.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to create images and videos with explicit content and sexually suggestive content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in generating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for months without taking any measures and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included sexual deepfakes created with AI.
It said platforms such as X were obligated to take "appropriate steps" to "lessen the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to remove it swiftly when they are notified of it.
