Elon Musk's social media network X has sparked major backlash after people employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate pictures of women by taking off their garments.
Multiple cases have been seen where the technology has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in bikinis without permission, as well as to put them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Reaction and Regulatory Stance
XAI, the company behind Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, aside from an standard response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being brought forward to prohibit nudification technology. Under a new law, anyone who distributed such technology would "face a prison sentence and heavy penalties".
"The platform is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said a law professor, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Regulator Stance and Platform Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "consider the danger" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in regarding AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free artificial intelligence—with some premium functions—which reacts to X users' queries when they tag it in a post.
It is commonly used to give reactions or further background to other users' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded photo through its artificial intelligence picture modification feature.
History of Criticism and Rules
The system has been condemned for permitting users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexualised content, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and spread of these pictures for a long time without taking any action and we have yet to see any challenge by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service forbids "showing likenesses of people in a graphic way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or circulate non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and confirmed this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "appropriate measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering unlawful content on their services and to delete it swiftly when they become aware of it.
