Elon Musk's social media platform X has sparked widespread backlash after users utilized its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to change photos of females by stripping their attire.
Multiple cases have emerged where the tool has been used to digitally undress women to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to questions, other than an automatically-generated response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being brought forward to ban nudification technology. Under a proposed law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok could prevent these types of abuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "appear to enjoy impunity."
Oversight Body Stance and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but did not specify whether it was presently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a tweet.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other users' comments, but people on X are also able to edit an posted photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to produce photos and clips with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making inappropriate content of public figures.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and distribution of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "depicting images of persons in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "make or circulate private pictures or illegal content" and stated this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary actions" to "minimize the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to take down it swiftly when they become aware of it.
