Elon Musk's social media network X has provoked widespread anger after users used its artificial intelligence assistant Grok to manipulate images of women by taking off their clothing.
Multiple instances have surfaced where the system has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in swimwear without consent, as well as to place them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, other than an automatically-generated response stating "legacy media lies".
A government official stated that new laws is being proposed to prohibit nudification tools. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who supplied such tools would "be subject to a jail term and heavy penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The communications watchdog Ofcom said platforms must "assess the potential" of people accessing illegal content on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a no-cost AI assistant—with some additional functions—which answers X users' queries when they mention it in a post.
It is frequently used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded image through its artificial intelligence picture modification function.
History of Controversy and Rules
The chatbot has been criticised for permitting users to create images and footage with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was previously alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit content of celebrities.
"X has been permitting the generation and sharing of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any action by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own usage rules prohibits "depicting likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit way".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or circulate non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and stated this included sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said platforms such as X were mandated to take "necessary steps" to "minimize the danger" of users viewing unlawful material on their platforms and to take down it quickly when they become aware of it.
