Elon Musk's social media platform X has caused major backlash after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to change images of females by removing their garments.
Numerous cases have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from women to show them in bikinis without consent, as well as to insert them in inappropriate situations.
Developer Response and Legal Stance
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, except for an auto-reply response stating "legacy media lies".
A government representative stated that new laws is being introduced to prohibit nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who distributed such technology would "receive a jail term and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they wanted to," said a law professor, adding they "operate with impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Functionality
The communications watchdog Ofcom said tech firms must "evaluate the danger" of people accessing unlawful material on their networks, but did not confirm whether it was currently investigating X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence images.
Grok is a no-cost chatbot—with some premium features—which responds to X users' queries when they mention it in a tweet.
It is commonly used to give reactions or additional context to other users' remarks, but people on X are also can edit an posted photo through its AI image editing function.
History of Controversy and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate images and videos with explicit content and sexualised content, and it was earlier accused of generating sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been allowing the production and spread of these pictures for months without taking any steps and we have yet to see any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own terms of service prohibits "showing likenesses of persons in a sexually explicit fashion".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was against the law to "make or share private pictures or illegal content" and stated this covered sexual deepfakes generated with AI.
It said services such as X were mandated to take "suitable measures" to "reduce the danger" of users encountering illegal material on their platforms and to delete it promptly when they are notified of it.
