Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked significant outrage after individuals used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate pictures of females by stripping their attire.
Several examples have been seen where the system has been employed to digitally undress female subjects to show them in bikinis without permission, as well as to place them in inappropriate contexts.
Developer Reaction and Regulatory Position
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an standard message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office spokesperson stated that legislation is being introduced to ban nudification technology. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such tools would "face a prison sentence and significant fines".
"The platform could prevent these forms of misuse if they desired to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have a lack of consequences."
Regulator Stance and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the potential" of people viewing illegal content on their networks, but stopped short of confirming whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional features—which answers X users' queries when they tag it in a message.
It is often used to offer reactions or additional context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an posted image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
Background of Controversy and Rules
The system has been condemned for enabling users to generate pictures and clips with explicit content and sexually suggestive material, and it was earlier accused of making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the creation and sharing of these pictures for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any intervention by regulators," the expert added.
XAI's own usage rules bans "portraying images of individuals in a graphic fashion".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "create or distribute deepfakes or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "suitable steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful content on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they learn of it.
